election 2016 primary charade

If you could believe anything in the media, you would think that Americans absolutely love their elections. I can't say one way or the other if they really do or not. A large number seem to, and yet, many of those who actually vote (as I have for many years) suspect that something doesn't quite add up. For instance, we have the case of the former Governor of Alabama, who seems to have been sent to federal prison for political reasons. And there is much more to make one suspicious. 

This problem has been with us for a long time, however, as the video below demonstrates.

Does TPP spell the demise of the internet as we know it?

Only time will tell. This is from CounterPunch.  It is hard to imagine that even Google and some of the big tech companies would be for some of the things in this deal. Perhaps they're not. time will tell, but if we take what is being reported at face value, especially in the article linked to above, it might become difficult to spread information throughout the internet as we can today. Who knows, it might be useless to link to articles, as copyright will be very much in the way. That's if we are still allowed to link to articles at all. On the other hand, the end of the internet has predicted by doomsayers many times before, and somehow, it survives. We'll have to wait and see if it survives this time. The problem is, the people with real power in this world don't like our freedom.

An example of the big brother nature of the internet

Many weird things have happened to me online, but I usually can't remember all of them at the same time. So, I'll go out there again (as that is what this blog has been about), and attempt to describe one such thing.

Once I had a different blogger blog where I sort of decided I was unhappy with some of the terms of use and copyright stuff Google goes on about. Silly on my part really anyway. So, I kind of blogged something, which I don't remember the particulars of, that was along the lines of saying I would sort of ignore all of this. Very silly on my part really.

Next time I logged in, maybe on the bottom of the blog (I don't remember), there was a message along the lines of, "you must accept the terms of service..."

Anybody who comes across this post would never believe me. But it is true. And this is mild compared to some of the other stuff.

Edward Snowden, backdoors, and imagining Germany

Ever since I started a blogspot blog several years ago, I have noticed that no matter what other stats might turn up, there was always exactly one view from Germany. Most people wouldn't think too much of this, and I don't really either.

Let's imagine for a moment (indulge me in a bit of fantastical speculation) that all (or even some particularly suspicious) blog traffic is routed through Germany. There it is tracked and even read, perhaps by a computer, and eventually if need be by a human. Let us say that in this fantastical world, there is a way for the entity in Germany to go into the blogger's computer and cause mischief.

Now, take out the part about Germany, and that seems to be what Edward Snowden was really telling us.

Other than the part about being able to cause mischief, I don't really care so much about the rest. Politics is public, and that is the point. We take stands, and make our views known publicly. States don't have to spy too much to figure out what those of us inclined towards politics think about issues of importance to us.

By the way, there could be something to the Germany part for all I know. This is a variation on the "big lie" idea. You know, if one tells a big lie people might be more inclined to believe it than a small lie, often attributed Goebbels I believe. My theory is more like the most outrageous explanation turns out to be what is really going on.

If one doesn't believe this was Snowden's message to us, here are some links:

Steve blank blog on NSA backdoor into computers

RT "Germany is nsa's primary host of surveillance..."  (Note: Irony. We now know that US even spied on PM Merkel.)

"a running list of what we know the nsa..."

teckdirt NSA planned to infect computers with malware

And believe me, there is much more.